1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to Internet facsimiles that allow facsimile transmissions with image information attached to E-mail.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, it is a common practice to exchange E-mail between personal computers (PC) over a local area network (LAN) or the Internet. Usually, Exchange of E-mail is implemented by connecting LAN to a PC which has E-mail software installed and by dialing up a contracted provider.
Furthermore, a facsimile type E-mail apparatus is put into practice as simple E-mail means without using a PC. This kind of facsimile type E-mail apparatus is called "Internet FAX. The Internet FAX is a facsimile provided with a function to communicate E-mail over the Internet, which transmits E-mail accompanied mainly by image information scanned by a scanner in attached file format.
There may be cases where image data files attached to received E-mail cannot being opened depending on some functions incorporated in the Internet FAX. Being unable to open the attached files means failing to receive image information correctly and this will require an error message to be sent to the sender.
Machines which has a sufficient storage capacity store, such as PC, all image information irrespective of whether it is possible to open the image information or not, and thus they can re-attach the image information that could not be opened to the E-mail and send it back to the sender.
However, with the Internet FAX, there is a limitation to the memory capacity for buffering received mail and only the amount of data corresponding to the buffer memory capacity is taken out of a mail server and that portion of data is opened and printed out in page units. When image information with a large capacity is attached, it is difficult to store all image information in the Internet FAX. In this case, when it fails to open an attached file containing the image information, it is not possible to re-attach the image information that could not be opened to the E-mail and send it back to the sender.
Furthermore, since a normal facsimile transmits data according to a facsimile transmission protocol, the facsimile on the sender side can confirm the delivery of the message. However, when image information is transmitted in E-mail format using the Internet FAX, it is not possible to confirm the delivery of the mail according to a facsimile transmission protocol.
As described above, the conventional Internet FAX is unable to notify the sender of the fact that the files attached to the received E-mail could not be opened or that data has been received successfully.